January 30

B30: Jan 30 Intro to course / marks breakdown / blog overview…

ela-b30-human-condition-outline.doc 

  1. Students filled up the room again as the weather is letting up and more are venturing off to school. We went through the outline handed out that detailed the literature and assignments in the order we will encounter them. In the handout, any assignments or exams are highlighted in grey for students to recognize when due dates are.
  2. We also discussed the breakdown of their evaluation. As mentioned before, there is no participation mark as all discussions, contributions, homework checks, etc are the standard expectation of all students. I do not give marks for homework checks but keep sporadic records in the possibility that someone unhappy with their mark may wonder why they are struggling. If you keep up with the work, it will be reflected in your mark.
    I have taken “Me” as much out of your evaluation mark as possible. English is somewhat subjective but there is no place in this mark for my opinion of your effort, etc. All parts of the evaluation mark are completely within your own control. I give assignments with clear expectations, often give you an example of work that is similar to show what type of mark it would receive, and give plenty of time to complete it.
  3. One of the components of the mark comes from a student blog project. Instead of having students write personal reflections after readings or discussions that are handed in for a mark, students will work on a blog of their own, similar to this blog, and engage in a dialogue through this with partners. They will be able to share thoughts together, post links to articles that ellaborate on the focus of their topic, and embed videos or music as well. The hope here is that they will be able to internalize more of what they are thinking after our talks and by adding comments to partner blogs, they will maybe see another perspective to learn from. Another reason is that the internet just has so many options for finding material that reiterates the ideas behind our classes. “Pimp out” a blog of your own or “pimp out” a journal notebook. Which would you be more involved with?
  4. We began a discussion about Identity and what it encompasses. Students came up with their own definition, brainstormed to come up with a list of descriptors of the identities of the two main characters from The Interpreter, and began a list of their own identity labels.
  5. Students have to create a list of ten things Other People think of them and ten things they think of Themselves. We’ll be using these twenty in a future assignment.


Posted January 30, 2008 by Waldner in category ELA 30

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*